Page 23 - bne IntelliNews Newspaper 280417

Weekly Lists
April 28, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 23
bne:Banker Bulgaria’s Fibank
hires Citigroup to advise on strategic opportunities
First Investment Bank, Bulgaria’s third largest commercial bank, has hired Citigroup Global Markets as financial advisor to review the available strategic opportunities, Fibank said in a filing on April 27.
Fibank suffered a deposit run in the summer of 2014, but was rescued by the state. Following the state aid, the European Com- mission approved a restructuring plan for the lender. According to the results of the asset quality review (AQR) and stress test of the banks in Bulgaria, published in August 2016, Fibank was expected to build up additional capital buffers of BGN205.7mn (€105.2mn).
On April 27, the lender said that the strategic opportunities could include entering into strategic partnerships and/or consolidations; attracting new core investors; and raising new capital to fund future growth.
Fitch Ratings expects the health of the troubled Kazakh banking sector to head towards improvement due to state efforts to address weak asset quality as the Kazakh economy recovers given the mod- est increase in oil prices, the agency said in a note on April 27.
Oleg Smolyakov, a deputy governor of the Kazakh central bank, confirmed the goals of conducting an asset-quality review and stress tests to calculate the banks' real exposures to distressed as- sets – Kazakh banks often underreport their non-performing loans (NPLs). Nonetheless, the rating agency believes that rehabilitation efforts may hurt bank creditors before, or as, any state support kicks in.
Digital payments using near-field communication (NFC) technolo- gies will come online in Iran from mid-May, according to a new Central Bank of Iran (CBI) decree communicated to the country’s banks in the past week, Banker Magazine reported on April 26.
Despite being disconnected from the global banking system be- cause of sanctions, Iran, assisted by Chinese technology firms, has developed its own financial technology industries on a par with peer industries abroad.
Iranian banks which have already invested in NFC payment card technologies can now move ahead with service provision, the CBI decree states.
Fitch anticipates Kazakh banking sector improvement
Iran looks forward to mid-May launch of NFC digital payments